Page 2 - Fledgling Synopsis

SYNOPSIS
Cassie Engel is closing the windows of her eccentric mountain-top house against a storm when a cherub blows in and lands on her bed. The strange bird-like creature seems to need her, and she wraps her in a blanket to keep her warm. She signals to her friend Raphael, whose house she can see from her lofty perch, and he comes up the winding road to find out what’s happened. He seems very discomfited by the cherub and also to be strangely well-informed about why she might have arrived.
Meanwhile, Cassie’s opera-singer mother is calling for her.
So she makes her way to the room at the very top of the house, the roof of which opens to the stars, to find that
her mother is asking her to get rid of the stuffed owls in the library. These owls have been in the house for generations and Cassie has no intention of removing them. Especially as recently they have taken to moving about, despite being dead for years.
Cassie and Raphael learn that the arrival of a cherub signals that an angel is about to rise – an angel that has been brought to earth as a wingless baby and brought up by the unsuspecting residents of Edenburg. When the angel develops its wings (incredibly painfully), the cherub arrives to escort it safely back through the firmament. It needs an escort because of the Schwartzwolken – strange, evil birds that attack the vulnerable angel in an attempt to win the firmament over to the dark side. Cassie soon realises that Raphael is undergoing this transformation, and she must keep him safe until it’s time for him to rise, despite every fibre of her being wanting him to stay.
Her dying grandmother is tended to by two monosyllabic nurses, Crunch and Grind, who use the crazy lift system that Cassie’s grandfather installed in the house, to visit and look