Free The Whisper by Aaron Starmer

and a rack of iron tools, and what had to be a bakery, with a large open fireplace near the back, and what was clearly a house of worship, with stools for the parishioners and a pulpit for whoever delivered the sermons. It seemed lived-in, this place, but perhaps not lived in for quite a while.
    The ivy and weeds had grown cocky, clinging to surfaces and sprouting from patches of ground where they had no right to be. The structures themselves appeared stable enough, relatively free of pests and rot, but they were also lonely. This village was completely empty; not a single person roamed about.
    Alistair made his way to the platform so he could examine it closely. A ladder led the twenty feet or so to the top, and with the hilt of the sword tucked under his arm, Alistair climbed rung by rung. Expecting to find something significant, he was disappointed to discover that the platform was merely a platform, a bare, flat rectangle of wooden slats. The view was lovely, but unenlightening. Below and around him was the village. Beyond the village, it was nothing but rolling fields and the dirt road.
    Alistair headed back to the ladder, but as he crouched to prepare his descent, a deep voice gave him pause.
    â€œOh dear, please do not hurry off.” A red hummingbird, wings aflutter, hovered in front of his face.
    â€œThat … wasn’t … you?” Alistair asked.
    â€œWho else would it be?” the hummingbird replied.
    The sane response for Alistair would have been Hummingbirds can’t talk , but sanity seemed to have no place in Aquavania. Animals were made of the night sky, so why couldn’t they talk? Alistair stood up and squeezed the handle of the sword.
    He does not always look like a monster, Hadrian had said. Sometimes he takes on different forms. Small ones. Deceptively innocuous ones.
    â€œWho are you?” Alistair asked.
    â€œI am Potoweet, noble defender of our fair Hutch,” the hummingbird said. “I do not surrender. I do not hide underground. I was first and I shall be last. Who might you be?”
    â€œAlistair. Alistair Cleary.”
    It was strange enough that the bird was speaking, but his deep voice was even stranger. One would think a hummingbird’s pitch would be unbearably high, but Potoweet spoke like a wise and distinguished gentleman.
    â€œAh,” Potoweet said. “You are another fool sent to his destruction. Hadrian’s cruelty and desperation know no limit.”
    As he hovered, Potoweet kept his eyes locked on Alistair’s. Each time Alistair tilted his head, Potoweet mirrored the movement with his body, making it impossible for Alistair to see whether he had the blue mark behind his ear, or if he even had ears. Do birds have ears?
    â€œI am looking for the—”
    â€œMandrake?” Potoweet asked. “And you want to know if I am he?”
    Alistair didn’t respond.
    â€œAllow me to land on your sword and you may examine my body,” Potoweet went on. “You will see I have nothing to hide.”
    Alistair began to raise the sword, but then thought better of it. “That sounds like a trick. I’m not a fool.”
    â€œEvidence suggests otherwise,” Potoweet said. “You serve Lord Hadrian.”
    â€œI serve myself,” Alistair retorted. “All I want is to find my friend Fiona and go home.”
    â€œAnd if you dispatch the Mandrake, Hadrian promised to grant you these things?”
    â€œNot … really.”
    â€œThen you are a fool.”
    Back home in Thessaly, when Alistair was seven, he had watched Kyle, then thirteen, shoot a robin out of a tree with a BB rifle. The bird had fallen into the mud at the edge of the swamp, where Kyle fetched the dead body and held it up by a tail feather. Alistair had winced and looked away, and Kyle had said, “Don’t get all weepy over a stupid bird. Do you cry over your chicken nuggets?”
    Alistair took a step away from Potoweet