Blackfeather Woods I took the boy to hear an echo

It was a little like something out of a low budget Hallowe'en special. Abraxas' mouth yawned open and Ramsay half expected something awful to happen, like hundreds of tiny crow bodies pouring out of it. Then his head turned ever so slowly toward him, and then his mouth closed. Ramsay's lips remained parted, suspended halfway between outright gawking and asking a question. He was leaning toward the latter but then things got about a hundred times more WTF'd.

What in the world. A shudder threatened to snake down his back as Abraxas came to a halt in front of him. He watched, a little queasy and a little horrified, as a pale tongue threaded out from between the black wolf's blacker lips, then retreated, drawing a feather into the soundless maw of the beast. What. What. He swallowed stiffly, fighting back a gag at what a feather in his throat might feel like. He wasn't quite scared, for Abraxas didn't seem harmful exactly, but he was certainly disturbed.

Why? he wondered, throwing a fleeting look at the chasm. Why are you here? Why did you throw a bird over? Why did you spread its wings first? Why did you eat that?