When a breeze blows in The Garden, that forest of flower trees within the greater forest of green trees in Gorrals, petals burst from and twirl about the woods in such abundance that it is as if the wind had just blown its first gust. And yet it was so windy in the heart of that expansive forest that it was the wind, not the flowers, that inspired the name of the town there.

  Zephyr, a town of white log cabins running up and around the northeastern edge of its namesake lake, was known far and wide for more than just its fragrant gusts. Peace and quiet were synonymous with Zephyr despite the plethora of perils in the woods beyond its borders. And Mrs. Apple, who had enjoyed such qualities those long years she'd lived there, preferred it that way.

  Which is exactly why, when that rotten Flowers kid had grown old enough to prove his indefensible nuisance, she stood tall and proud with a small but raucous assemblage outside Mayor Flowers's lawn and demanded he ship the foundling off.

  It was no use. The mayor had raised him as his own. The boy remained.

  Being the positive person she aimed to be, she hoped maybe time would mature the boy. But it hadn’t. He was older now, taller and shaggier, all blonde hair and frightfully blue eyes, but worse rather than better for it. He could clear an oak in a single bound, keep a-pace with any horse. Despite that, he seemed insistent on using the tops of private homes like public domain. He scurried rooftop to rooftop between trees, no matter who lived beneath them or what they thought about it. He was the Mayor’s only son and spoiled. The world was his personal jungle gym. Everything in it. He'd kicked over more than one of Mrs. Apple’s prized potted plants on her upper patio garden – most recently, Oscar, her darling sapling oak – and she'd only just had the darn thing installed.

  She was jumpy in her own home, always checking her windows, broom in hand – or ladle.

  That paranoia, and her growing viciousness against such reckless disregard, was why, when her floorboards quaked halfway through that fateful afternoon, and the house shuttered, and her windows rattled, her first thought was to blame the boy.

  She poked her head through the window beneath the patio garden. It didn't look like anyone was up there or had been; everything stood intact. But a dust cloud billowed to the east, over the tree line, and continued west a good ways. She thought she heard screaming from that direction too. Wailing, cries, and a desperate, horrible pleading.

  She hurried to the door and flung it open for a better look. What she saw drained the blood from her cheeks.

  Feathered drakuls. Three of them, no more than twenty paces away, pecking at a mess of blood and gore at their feet. They were all large, especially hefty; but one of them could clear the twelve feet of the crest of her lower roof. They were predatory flightless birds, perhaps a descendant of the ancient terror bird. They were like monstrous chickens, stub-winged, thick-legged, and with sharp-toothed beaks spilling over with barbed prongs. One looked her way, cocked its head.

  She’d seen enough. She slammed the door shut and nearly fell backward over a chair she toppled behind her in her stumbling.

  Shakily, she forced herself back to the door and locked it. She stepped back as it quaked violently, its handle jiggling. Dust she’d meant to get to came sprinkling down like a light gray snow.

  On her way to the pantry for a broom and dustpan she froze. More screaming, hollering and gut-wrenching squawks. The commotion was so close, so thunderous that it tickled her feet through the floor.

  Through her window she witnessed a horde of the giant birds chasing screaming townsfolk, a gust of dirt and spattering debris clattering into her walls and windows as the nearest bird wheeled suddenly, skidding, before giving up on the cat that scurried under the house.

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  She gulped; she thought she knew the fleeing townsfolk. If it was them, they lived just down the way. Leah Wreath, and her husband, Shoen.

  There was no more screaming. Only stillness. Silence.

  She breathed heavily. In and out, her heart drumming thump, thump, thump!

  She was utterly still. She couldn't remember doing that, not in ages – she'd never had to. A rage against the foreign feeling welled inside her. Contempt bubbled and festered in her gut so hard she felt it.

  When she could take it no more, she hurried to the kitchen sink for a knife. She grabbed the heavy ladle there instead. With it, she crept to the front door. There, she froze; no matter how she tried, she couldn’t will herself to twist the knob.

  This was her house, her yard – her lawn those birds had trampled all to hell.

  But she couldn’t. She couldn't do it. She couldn't even move. She just stood there, statuesque, like terror in stone, and even quieted her breathing.

  There was a rustling, and then a clambering and clanking. Somebody off in the distance yelled – a girl, or a boy – and that screaming came closer until-

  There was a crashing sound like the thunder of nearby lightning. The logs supporting her ceiling crumbled at once in a splintering mess of shards and dangling beams. There, on her floor, dirty, dusty, splintery and beneath a flurry of twirling flowers, was the Flowers boy. He'd finally done it. He'd finally gone and ruined her damned house.

  She laughed. She couldn’t help it. Incredulous laughter spilled out of her, a flood of pent of feelings released. A panic in his eyes silenced her, replaced comic irony with fear. His gaze was aimed behind her. She turned and saw the source of his terror. A literal monster. A drakul, all of twelve feet tall, stood at the gaping hole her door once partially filled. The bird was only partially visible, from the grotesquely massive claws to just above its knobby knees. The skin of its legs was peeling and dirty, orange like freshly dug carrots. Its sticky gray body was shrouded by the wall that remained, but its festering stink crept in. There was a crunching, ripping noise, and what sounded like desperate whining from up above. The massive body of the bird twisted and gyrated, and light pored in through the ceiling, in gaps between its head and what wood remained. Its dead eyes found her, and it did everything in its power to break in further and eat her.

  She couldn't move, but she didn't have to. The boy – Windston Flowers – shoved past her and hurled himself into the bird at a frightening speed. There was a hefty thud of body-on-body impact as he plunged his shoulder into the bird and kept stepping. The bird's whining became yodeling, and that yodeling cut short as it tumbled, Windston with it, down the freshly stained steps of her new front porch – all suddenly a ruinous mess of flying, splintering boards.

  With a sudden raging fire in her gut, the old woman hurled herself out into the sunlight and, with her ladle overhead, rushed them. It didn’t matter to her who she got to first – the bird or the bastard boy. She was going to avenge her beautiful porch, her home, or die trying.

  Another bird saw her. It caught her, snatched her up, slung her side-to-side like a puppy with a ragdoll. Her ribs crunched – she could oddly feel that; it was like a noiseless sound inside. Her wind escaped her from both sides. Her mouth went all salty, metallic, coppery. Her limbs tingled and her eyes felt as though they'd burst from the immense pressure of the bite and the pooling of blood from inertia.

  The monster released her, or she ripped apart. She wasn't sure which. She only knew she was flying now, hopefully far away, to heaven maybe – to Bill, Ferny, Mama, Daddy and Louise. She could see the trees and their flowers. And then she saw the Flowers boy. He was swinging that freaky bright flaming thing he called a sword. She was sure he didn't see her coming. Screaming didn't work anymore; nothing came out but bubbling gurgles.

  As he turned, and he swung his sword into her body, she thought... I didn't think it'd feel like that. It didn't hurt. Not even a little bit. There was no impact. Just warmth rising to heat, and a tingling, tickling feeling. Oozing warmth followed, and just as something heavy was sliding out of her open bottom end from within.

  Cold and fruitlessly gasping, she lay there like a fish left in the grass. And she was oddly fine with that.

  As she twitched and swallowed, she saw the boy again. Windston Flowers. His face was smudged with black blood. Hair and gray feathers were pasted to his one side, to his cheek. His expression was neutral, not at all disturbed, or even disgusted.

  She thought maybe she'd smile at him. She didn’t know why. There was a flooding feeling inside her; she felt full of bursting from within.

  Someone pushed past the boy, and she was sure it'd be her William.

  But it wasn't. It was Bo – Bo Beeman. She'd never liked him, and she was sure he never liked her back. But he knelt down beside her all the same, despite the havoc, the commotion, the frenzy, and just to tell her one more lie.

  "Shh. Don't fight it, don’t fight it. Shut your eyes. You're gonna be just fine, now. I promise."